“I believe—er,” said the colonel blandly, “that I—er—intimated with some firmness”—
“That's it—just it!” interrupted the child delightedly. “You—you—overdid 'em”
“What?”
“OVERDID 'EM! Don't you know? They're always so high and mighty! Kinder 'Don't tech me. My mother's an angel; my father's a king'—all that sort of thing. They did THIS”—she drew herself up in a presumable imitation of the two women's majestic entrance—“and then,” she continued, “you—YOU jest did this”—here she lifted her chin, and puffing out her small chest, strode towards the colonel in evident simulation of his grandest manner.
A short, deep chuckle escaped him—although the next moment his face became serious again. But Pansy in the mean time had taken possession of his coat sleeve and was rubbing her cheek against it like a young colt. At which the colonel succumbed feebly and sat down on the sofa, the child standing beside him, leaning over and transferring her little hands to the lapels of his frock coat, which she essayed to button over his chest as she looked into his murky eyes.
“The other girls said,” she began, tugging at the button, “that you was a 'cirkiss'”—another tug—“'a nigger minstrel'”—and a third tug—“'a agent with samples'—but that showed all they knew!”
“Ah,” said the colonel with exaggerated blandness, “and—er—what did YOU—er—say?”
The child smiled. “I said you was a Stuffed Donkey—but that was BEFORE I knew you. I was a little skeert too; but NOW”—she succeeded in buttoning the coat and making the colonel quite apoplectic,—“NOW I ain't frightened one bit—no, not one TINY bit! But,” she added, after a pause, unbuttoning the coat again and smoothing down the lapels between her fingers, “you're to keep on frightening the old cats—mind! Never mind about the GIRLS. I'll tell them.”
The colonel would have given worlds to be able to struggle up into an upright position with suitable oral expression. Not that his vanity was at all wounded by these irresponsible epithets, which only excited an amused wonder, but he was conscious of an embarrassed pleasure in the child's caressing familiarity, and her perfect trustfulness in him touched his extravagant chivalry. He ought to protect her, and yet correct her. In the consciousness of these duties he laid his white hand upon her head. Alas! she lifted her arm and instantly transferred his hand and part of his arm around her neck and shoulders, and comfortably snuggled against him. The colonel gasped. Nevertheless, something must be said, and he began, albeit somewhat crippled in delivery:—
“The—er—use of elegant and precise language by—er—young ladies cannot be too sedulously cultivated”—